Goudeau, 46, already has been sentenced to more than 400 years in prison for sexually assaulting two sisters in 2005. He remains charged with 74 crimes, including the Baseline Killer murders, stemming from 12 different attacks. He could get the death penalty if convicted of any of the murders.

As the case moves toward an April 6 trial date, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge must decide if Goudeau's attorneys, Randall Craig and Roderick Carter, can cast blame on two other men, or if they must work within the prosecution's theory that the Baseline Killer worked alone.

It's called a "third-party defense," and Goudeau spent two days in evidentiary hearings this week, listening to police officers on both sides of the argument.

Among the lingering questions in the Baseline attacks were the varied physical descriptions of the assailant, who frequently was described as smaller than Goudeau, an issue that detectives say is common.

One Phoenix police officer, Rusty Stuart, had compiled a dossier on a man named Terry Wayne Smith, who created nuisances in the neighborhood near 32nd Street and Thomas Road in central Phoenix, the neighborhood where Goudeau lived and where many of the Baseline Killer crimes took place.

Smith is in prison for an assault he committed there.

Stuart testified that Smith had exhibited behavior similar to the Baseline Killer, and the report he filed on Smith has been a sore point for Phoenix police.

But former Phoenix police Detective Alex Femenia, who was the case's lead investigator, said Smith "couldn't plan his own lunch." The Baseline Killer, he argued, was cagey and elusive. Smith was simply aggressive and not very bright.

"I'm trying to be kind," Femenia said.

Furthermore, Femenia said, there was DNA evidence linking Goudeau to several of the victims, and blood from two of them was found on shoes in Goudeau's house.

Another Phoenix officer detailed how the fingerprint of a man named Omar Hralima was found at the site of a restaurant robbed at gunpoint. Femenia noted, however, that the man had attended an orientation there as a potential employee.

Femenia interviewed both men and cleared them in the investigation that resulted in Goudeau's arrest on Sept. 6, 2006.

Judge Warren Granville will decide whether to allow the third-party defense strategy. Granville also will rule on whether the crimes will be tried all at once or split into several trials.